Senate passes law to extend intervention

The Senate has passed legislation extending the intervention in the Northern Territory, after sitting until the early hours of the morning.

The legislation also allows income quarantining measures in other parts of the country.

The Greens did not support the bills, and speaking last night the party's leader Christine Milne criticised the Government for bringing on the debate with only a few hours' notice.

"This legislation wasn't even supposed to be coming on today, it wasn't even discussed in the meeting this morning as to what would be on the agenda today in the parliament and it turned up here on the notice paper at about 1:30 or 1:15 this afternoon," she said.

Senator Milne said she was furious the debate was brought on after the Senate had spent the day debating legislation which would have reinstated offshore processing.

"The reason this is so shocking is that this is the last day of sitting before the long winter break, we have been debating these other measures all day," she said.

"This legislation wasn't even supposed to be coming on today, it wasn't even discussed in the meeting this morning."

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